Truth, Fibs and the Family Tree
by Vol lady
Summary: Set 8 years after "Anthony Jarrod Barkley" and "Life Turned Around." Jarrod's son J.J. and Nick's son Tony are fighting, egged on by stories made up by Heath's son, Little Heath. Nick and Heath decide it's time to set the boys straight.
1. Chapter 1

Truth, Fibs and the Family Tree

Chapter 1

October 1890

Eight-year-old Tony Barkley had his father's quick temper. Ten-year-old J.J. Barkley had his father's determination and relentlessness. Since J.J. also had about three inches and ten pounds advantage over his cousin, their Uncle Heath made a grab for J.J.'s collar and pulled him away from Tony first. At about that same time, Nick heard his son yelling and ran to help break up the fight. He grabbed Tony by the collar, and Nick and Heath managed to get them apart and keep them that way.

"What the heck is this about?" Nick hollered at his son, and then he noticed Tony had a bloody nose. Nick pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the blood off Tony's face and held the handkerchief to his nose. "Tilt your head back."

"Why?" Tony blurted out.

"Because I said so!" Nick had right back at him. Then he softened. "It'll make your nose stop bleeding."

J.J. had a split lip that was bleeding, and Heath put his own handkerchief to it. "What started all this?" Heath asked.

Neither boy said a thing.

"Come on, I want an answer!" Heath said.

J.J. said quietly, "Tony said I didn't have a father because he ran away after I was born."

"Why would you say something like that?" Nick said, giving Tony a shake. "You know J.J.'s father died before you were born. We've been to his grave together."

Tony fidgeted. "Little Heath told me that was a fake grave."

Suddenly they heard little footsteps running away, around the side of the barn. Heath heaved a sigh. "That kid of mine loves to make up stories. Tony, listen to me. Your Uncle Jarrod died, he didn't run away. Heath was just fibbing to you."

"Why did he die?" J.J. abruptly asked.

None of the Barkley grandchildren – Jarrod's son J.J., Nick's son Tony, Heath's sons Little Heath and Little Nick, and Audra's daughters Victoria Marie and Amanda Jane – had ever talked about why J.J. had no father or why Victoria Marie and Amanda Jane didn't look like either of their parents. Everybody figured they were too young to care about such things, but now it looked like they had been talking to each other about them. Nick and Heath looked at each other, wondering how to answer J.J.'s question. There was no simple answer.

Nick said, "Why don't we talk about that after your mama comes home?"

Jarrod's widow Maggie lived at the mansion with J.J., Nick and his wife Nancy and son, and Nick's mother Victoria. Heath and his wife Suzanne and sons lived at another house on the property. Victoria, Nancy and Maggie had gone into Stockton to shop with Suzanne for some "ladies' necessities" but would be back at any time. Nick and Heath had just come in from the range. Everyone, including Audra and her husband Carl and their girls, would be gathering for dinner as soon as the ladies were back. Nick and Heath wished they would come right away so they could let Maggie decide what to tell J.J.

"And why don't we get the two of you cleaned up before your mothers get a look at you?" Heath said.

Nick said, "Heath, why don't you track down your boy while I get these two inside? And no more fighting!" Nick added to the two boys.

They went inside with Nick. Only Silas was there to get a look at them as they went into the kitchen.

Nick said, "We got some walking wounded here, Silas."

Silas said, "Oh, my goodness, sit them down over there!"

Nick put them into chairs near the door outside, where the medical supplies were kept in a cabinet. Silas got the supplies out and began to clean the boys up and treat their insignificant wounds, but for some reason, his smile began to grow wider as he tended them.

"What are you laughing at?" Tony asked.

"Hey!" Nick warned him.

Silas kept smiling. "Oh, Tony, I'm just remembering how I used to have to clean up your daddy and Mr. Jarrod when they were boys and got to fighting."

Tony gave his father a suspicious eye.

Nick saw it. "Yeah, we fought. We weren't much different than the two of you, except your Uncle Jarrod was a lot older and a lot bigger than me, so he won the fights."

Silas out and out laughed. "You never gave up tryin', Mr. Nick. By the time you got bigger than Mr. Jarrod, you were both comin' home from the war and weren't interested in fightin' anybody anymore."

"If you fought with Uncle Jarrod, why are you so mad at J.J. and me?" Tony asked.

"Because I'm grown up now and I know how foolish it is to fight, especially with somebody who's family," Nick said. "You're gonna need him later, when you're older. You don't want to be enemies, ever."

"How come you never talk about the war, Uncle Nick?" J.J. asked.

"Because it's no fun to talk about," Nick said. "Your Uncle Heath and I will tell you boys about it when you're a little older."

"Everything has to be when we're older," Tony said to J.J.

Nick saw the two boys now aligning themselves together against their elders. With a sigh, he helped clean the boys up and sent them off. "Now, go wash up for dinner and change into some clean clothes."

About then, Heath came in the back door with his son Little Heath in hand. He heard Nick send the other two boys off and said, "Heath, you go clean up and change into your clean clothes, too."

As the boys went up the back stairs, Nick asked Heath, "Did Little Heath really tell J.J. his father ran away?"

"Yeah, and he was doing the cheering while Tony and J.J. fought," Heath said.

Silas chuckled and went back to fixing dinner. "It's just the youngest boy keepin' the older two off his back."

"We better talk to Maggie about Jarrod," Nick said. "These boys are beginning to ask questions that need answers coming from somebody other than Little Heath."

"Yeah," Heath agreed. "I just hope they don't know that Victoria Marie and Amanda Jane are adopted yet."

"We better talk to Audra, too," Nick said, and Heath nodded.

The children's part-time nanny, a woman about Maggie's age named Claire, came down the back stairs, saying, "What in the world happened to those boys? I turn my back for one minute to change the baby, and they're all bloodied up!"

"It's all right, Claire, it's not your fault," Nick said.

Claire came to take care of whatever children were there when she was called upon. At the moment, that included Heath's youngest, Little Nick. "Well, I suppose they've gotten to that age," Claire said. "I guess we should have expected this before now."

"Do you mind checking to see that they're not at it again?" Heath asked.

"They're not," Claire said. "They're talking about giving it to Little Heath, though."

Heath sighed. "Maybe it's time we stopped having kids."

Silas could be heard laughing from across the room.

XXXXXXX

The ladies came back from town while the boys were still upstairs. Nick and Heath had to help carry in the packages, wondering for the n'th time how women could spend so much money, but keeping it to themselves. As they carried the packages upstairs, the women following along behind them, Nancy and Suzanne keeping close to Victoria since the stairs were a bit tougher for her than they used to be.

Nick said, "We need to talk a bit about the boys."

"Why? Was there a problem?" Victoria asked.

"Tony and J.J. had a bit of a row," Nick said.

"Any damage?" Victoria asked.

"One bloody nose and one split lip," Heath said, "and one little fib teller who got his backside wailed."

"What was the fib about?" Suzanne said. She was pretty sure who the fib teller was.

"Why don't we talk about that after we put these things down?" Heath asked.

It took less than five minutes to accomplish that and get back into the living room. While they were all up there, they could hear J.J., Tony and Little Heath laughing in J.J.'s room, so they knew the boys would probably stay occupied for a while and the adults could have some time to themselves before dinner.

"So, what fib did Little Heath tell now?" Suzanne asked as her husband handed her some sherry.

"A pretty low one," Heath said. "He told the boys that Jarrod's gravestone was fake, and that Jarrod had run away after J.J. was born."

The women all closed their eyes and sank into the seats they were in.

"I think we straightened that little story out," Heath said. "But J.J. wanted to know why his father died."

"We didn't want to say anything to him until we talked to you, Maggie," Nick said, "but your son, at least, is old enough to start asking real questions."

"I know," Maggie said. "He's already asked me. I've been soft-pedaling the answer, I'm afraid."

"They've started to ask about the war, too," Heath said. "We're gonna have to explain _that_ to them before long. And someday, maybe now, is also the time to explain about me."

No one was really expecting him to mention that. "Are you sure they're not too young to understand that?" Victoria asked.

"Maybe they don't need to know all of it, but as long as we're straightening out the family ties, they might at least need to know that – well, I guess you'd say I'm adopted."

"Maybe it _is_ time we ought to be talking to the older children frankly," Nancy said. "One of these days, they're going to figure out that Audra's children don't look like everybody else, too."

"Heath," Victoria said, "are you ready to talk about Jarrod's death yet?"

"Or the war?" Nick asked.

Heath looked at them. He knew what his mother meant. He never talked much about Jarrod at all, especially how and why he died, and he never asked himself if he was ready to talk. Even though it had been almost ten years now, it still hurt. And then there was the war, and the prison camp. How was he ever going to explain that to the kids?

But –

"Maybe it's time for me, too," Heath said.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Audra and her husband, Carl Wheeler, arrived with their two girls only a few minutes later. Amanda Jane was still a baby, but Victoria Marie was only a few months younger than J.J. As soon as they came in, everyone else looked at one another. Should Victoria Marie be part of this conversation? Did she even know yet that she was adopted?

"Hello, everyone," Audra said and then looked very uncomfortable about the way they all were looking at her.

"Hello, darling," Victoria said, got up and kissed all the newcomers. Then she bent to Victoria Marie. "Vicki, sweetheart, would you run into the kitchen and find out if Mr. Silas needs me to help him at all?"

"Yes, ma'am," Victoria Marie said and ran off.

"What's going on?" Audra asked.

"We've been talking about the older children," Victoria said. "The boys at least are beginning to ask questions, about the family, even about the war. Is Vicki asking questions?"

Audra sighed.

Carl nodded. "When we adopted Amanda Jane, Vicki asked if she was adopted, and we told her the truth. She was perfectly all right about it. We didn't want the boys to torment her and start making her feel bad, so we just didn't talk about it to all of you."

"How about Jarrod?" Maggie asked. "Does she understand about J.J.'s father?"

"She understands that he died, though I don't think she fully understands what that means," Audra said.

"Well," Victoria said, "I think the thing to do is to put off this discussion with the boys until the Wheeler family isn't here – unless you want to be here when we talk to them about Jarrod and Vicki."

"Do they really need to know about Vicki yet?" Audra asked.

"Little Heath is starting to make up his own version of the truth about things," Heath said. "Tony and J.J. got into a fight when he told them Jarrod ran away. I think they're getting old enough that they need to hear the straight truth before that little storyteller of mine starts at it again."

Carl said, "Heath's right. We should tell those boys the truth. Otherwise the truth will turn out to be a bigger deal than it needs to be."

"All right," Audra said, "but I'd rather we didn't talk about Vicki and Amanda while Vicki is here, and I sure don't want her hearing about the war yet."

"Fair enough," Nick said. "We'll have this conversation tomorrow."

"And I think you two should handle it, all of it," Victoria said to Nick and Heath. "They should really hear it from you men. They'll handle it better."

"Okay," Nick sighed. "That gives us all of tomorrow to decide what we're going to say."

Heath shook his head. "I think we ought to talk to them in the morning. I'll bring Heath over again."

"If we talk to them and then leave – " Nick said, uneasy with doing that.

"If you talk to them and then leave, I'm sure Silas and Claire and I can handle any fights that break out," Victoria said. "I handled you boys more than once."

Heath raised an eyebrow. "And we were over 21."

XXXXXXX

"Why are you taking us to Grandma's again?" Little Heath asked.

Heath looked down at him. They sat side by side at the breakfast table while Suzanne breast fed Little Nick in the nursery. "Because Uncle Nick and I are going to have a talk with you boys about some of the things you've been making stories up about."

"Am I in trouble?" Little Heath asked.

"Yes," Heath said flatly. "And once we have this talk, you are not to make up any more stories about J.J.'s father or anything else, got that?"

Little Heath poked at his breakfast. "Yes, sir," he said, sounding very disappointed.

"You hurt J.J. very much when you told him his father ran away," Heath said. "You can't go hurting people with the stories you make up."

"I didn't know."

"I know you didn't know, but listen to me and listen to me good. When you make up stories about people, you are lying, and lying is bad. You don't do that anymore, got that?"

"Yes, sir," Little Heath said.

Heath and Suzanne took both the boys over to the mansion again just after breakfast. When they arrived, they found Victoria, Nick, Nancy, Tony, Maggie and J.J. already gathered in the living room. Nick was already separating Tony and J.J., saying, "It's not worth arguing about! Sit down and behave yourselves!"

Heath wasn't sure he wanted to know what they were arguing about.

"Well," Victoria said, "I believe you men have a few things to discuss. Why don't you repair to the library and we'll stay out of your way?"

"Come on," Nick said and gathered Tony and J.J. to herd them ahead of himself.

"Why do we have to repair the library?" Tony asked. "Is it broke?"

"'Is it broken', and no, it's not," Nick said. "This time 'repair' just means we're going in there."

"Why didn't Grandma say that?"

"Tony!" Nancy called, and Tony went along quietly after that.

As soon as they were out of earshot, the women looked at each other and, despite the serious conversation the men were going to have with the boys, they smirked at each other. "You know," Victoria said, "I used to tell Nick he should have a son just like he was, and darned if he hasn't had one."

XXXXXX

Nick and Heath took the boys into the library and closed the door, and that signaled all three of them to behave. They had all been conditioned from birth that the library was a serious place. They were not to argue with anyone or misbehave in any way when they were in the library.

"Sit down," Heath said and put them all on the sofa. He and Nick remained standing. "We want to talk to you and tell you some things so that you, Little Heath, will not go making up stories again. We want you all to know the truth about the family. We think you're grown up enough to understand things."

Tony, at least, sat straighter, apparently impressed that the adults considered him grown up. J.J. understood a little better that he and his cousins were not considered to be adults, but just not babies, either. Little Heath twiddled his thumbs.

"All right, now listen," Nick said. "You all know that you're cousins – Little Heath, my brother Heath here is your daddy. Tony, I'm your father. And J.J., your father was our brother Jarrod. Little Heath, you know your Uncle Jarrod didn't run away. He died before J.J. was even one year old. That's the fact, Little Heath. Don't ever say again that he ran away."

"Okay," Little Heath said quietly.

"Why did my father die?" J.J. asked quickly.

Nick looked at Heath, who stooped down to eye-level with J.J. and looked at him. "I want you to know this, and believe me when I tell you that everything I say is what happened. Your father was very sick. He was even sick when you were born, and the disease he had couldn't be cured."

J.J. looked at him. "The disease made him die?"

"It was going to, but something else happened first," Heath said. "A bad man came, a man who hated me and wanted to kill me. Your father – " Heath's voice caught on the words. He swallowed. "Your father faced up to that man before that man could kill me, and he killed the bad man, but the bad man killed him, too. Your father died saving my life. If he hadn't – Heath, look at me."

Little Heath looked at his father, and now Heath addressed him directly.

"Heath, if J.J.'s father hadn't died saving me, you wouldn't be here. It all happened before you were born. You're here because J.J.'s father gave up his life for me."

Nick looked at his son. "Tony, boys, do you understand what Uncle Heath is saying?"

Tony nodded. "Uncle Jarrod was sick, but he saved Uncle Heath anyway."

"And my father would have died anyway," J.J. said.

"Yes," Heath said. "But he decided to die for something. He died for me."

J.J. suddenly threw his arms around Heath's neck. Heath was completely taken by surprise. He hugged J.J. hard.

"Now, listen," Heath said after a few moments, and as J.J. sat back again, Heath rubbed his eyes. "There are more things you're old enough to know about."

Heath stood up then and turned away a bit. Nick knew he needed to gather himself back up, so Nick took over. "Do you boys know what it means to be adopted?"

J.J. said, "Adopted is when parents bring up someone else's baby."

"Well, usually it's babies but not always," Nick said. "But anyway, your cousins Vicki and Amanda are adopted. Your Aunt Audra and Uncle Carl are their parents now because their real parents couldn't bring them up."

The boys looked at each other now, apparently all thinking the same thing, but it was Tony who voiced it. "Are we adopted too?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"No," Nick said. "You guys aren't adopted."

"But I'm adopted," Heath said.

The boys looked confused.

"Your Grandma adopted me, but I was all grown up when she did," Heath said.

Now they looked more confused. "Why?" Little Heath asked.

Heath smiled, stumbling for an answer. "I had a different Mama. Her name was Leah Thompson. Grandpa Tom was my father, but Miss Thompson was my mother, and I grew up with her. When she died, I came to live here, and Grandma adopted me."

"Why did she have to adopt you if you were grown up?" Tony asked.

"Just legal stuff, I'll bet," J.J. said.

Nick and Heath both chuckled. Leave it to the lawyer's son to go straight to the law. "Yeah, it was legal stuff," Heath said.

"I'll never understand legal stuff," J.J. said, shaking his head.

"That makes two of us, kid," Nick said.

"You gonna tell us about the war, too?" Little Heath asked.

Nick and Heath looked at each other. They hadn't quite figured out what to say about the war. They really weren't planning to get past Heath being adopted as quickly as they did.

J.J. helped them out. "What did my father do in the war?"

"Well, your father was in the army during the whole four years of the war," Nick said. "He fought in some big battles. He was wounded at a place called Antietam which was one of the biggest battles, and then at a place called the salt works and at another place near the end of the war. In between he was a lieutenant and then a captain and then even a major, and for a while he worked as a spy."

"A spy?"

"A very dangerous job," Heath said. "He had to learn a lot of things about the enemy while nobody knew he was learning them."

"What did you do, Papa?" Tony asked.

"Well, since I was younger, I didn't go off to the war until it was almost over," Nick said, "and I didn't do anything as fancy as being a spy, but I was a lieutenant and I was what they called an aide to a general. I helped the general with his troops."

"Were you in any big battles?"

"Yeah, but I only got wounded once."

"What did you do, Papa?" Little Heath asked.

"Well," Heath said, "I was just a boy when I went in near the end of the war. J.J., I was only a couple years older than you."

J.J.'s eyes got big.

"There were lots of boys my age," Heath said. "We fought in a couple battles, but I got captured." Heath swallowed. "I spent most of my time in a prison called Carterson, until the war was over, and then they sent me home."

"What was it like in the prison?" Little Heath asked.

Heath wasn't quite sure what to say about that. These boys didn't need to know all the details, how dreadful it was to be without food and medicine, how men were brutalized or brutalized each other. "It wasn't a good place to be," Heath said. "I got very sick in prison, and when they let me out I was still pretty sick. It took a long time to get well. But I went home, and my mama took care of me, and I got well."

Little Heath screwed up his face like he just thought of something. "If your mama was Miss Thomson, then that means she was my grandma – and Grandma isn't really my grandma."

"No," Heath said, "it means that instead of two grandmas, you had three, and two of them died. Miss Thomson is in heaven with your Uncle Jarrod and your Grandpa Tom and your Grandma and Grandpa Pearson."

J.J. looked thoughtful as well. "If my father died after I was born, that means he knew me when I was little, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," Nick said, laughing. "He was crazy about you. He'd get on the floor and play with you, and you'd both laugh."

"You always made him smile," Heath said. "Even after you learned how to say the word 'no,' and boy howdy, did you know what that meant. Sometimes you'd say it and laugh just to make your daddy laugh."

"These books in here," Nick said, waving his arm at the books behind the desk, "these were all your daddy's books, J. J. Now, most of them are legal books and I don't understand them, but he did, and after he died, we just kept them around to remind us about him."

"What about those books that only have fronts?" Tony asked.

Nick and Heath looked wide-eyed at each other. How did Tony find out about them? And how were they going to explain them?

"Well," Heath started, "you know how grown-ups like to drink the grown-up drinks before dinner?"

J.J. nodded. "Like scotch."

Nick shook his head. "Boy, you are your father's son."

Heath went on. "J.J., your father used to hide some of his bottles of scotch so we wouldn't find them and drink them all up when he wasn't around. One of his hiding places was behind those books."

J.J. jumped up and ran to the bookshelves. "Where are they?"

Nick walked over to the phony books and pulled one off the shelf. J.J. broke into a big grin when Nick handed him only the binding of a book that looked like a real book until you took it down. He brought the piece of book over to the sofa and showed it to his cousins. They all laughed.

"And just how did you find that?" Nick asked, sounding stern, and his son quit laughing. "That was far too high up for you to reach. Were you climbing on that bookshelf?"

Tony blushed. "I was pretending it was a mountain."

Little Heath and J.J. laughed.

"No laughing about this," Nick ordered and they stopped. "Nobody is to climb up that bookshelf, understood? It could have fallen and you could have gotten hurt. It's for books, not for little boys. Got that?"

"Can I keep this one?" J.J. asked, holding onto the piece of book.

"Sure," Nick said. "You know when it was we found that hiding place? It was the first Christmas after your father died. We drank the last of his hidden scotch that Christmas."

"You were just barely walking, you were so small," Heath said. "And your Uncle Nick lifted you up so you could put the angel on the top of the Christmas tree."

"You looked at us like we were all crazy," Nick said. "Putting all those shiny things on a tree we brought into the house."

The boys all laughed. J.J. said, "I don't think it's crazy anymore. Can you tell me another story about my father?"

Nick and Heath looked at each other again. There were so many stories – what could they tell? "Well," Nick said, "you know you're father was a lawyer, and he put bad men in jail. Once, one of those bad men hurt him and for a while he couldn't see. And that bad man came after him, and your father killed that bad man right in this room, even though he couldn't see."

"Where?" Little Heath asked.

Nick walked over to the edge of the pool table near the door and said, "Right here. Your Uncle Jarrod killed that bad man who was trying to kill him right here."

J.J. looked up at Nick. "Was he scared, Uncle Nick?"

"Oh, yeah, he was scared, but that's something about us Barkley men, something you three ought to know, too," Nick said, coming back. "We get scared sometimes. There's nothing wrong with being scared. But we do what we have to do to defend the ourselves and the people we love, even if we're scared."

"Uncle Heath," J.J. asked very seriously, "when you went to war and you were only a couple years older than me – did you kill anybody?"

"Now, I don't know," Heath said. "Those cannons and those guns make a lot of smoke. I shot into the smoke, but I never knew if I shot anybody."

"Were you scared?"

"You bet I was, but I was defending myself and my friends who were fighting beside me."

J.J. said quietly, "Uncle Nick, will you teach me how to defend myself and the people I love?" He looked up at Nick. "I don't have a father to do that. I think my father would want you to do that."

Nick swallowed. "I'll have to talk to your mother, see if she thinks the time is right yet, but yes, when it's time I'll teach you what you need to know."

"Me, too?" both Tony and Little Heath piped up at the same time.

Nick smiled. "You, too, Tony, but your daddy will teach you, Heath."

J.J. stood up, holding his piece of book. "I think I want to go take this up to my room."

Tony and Little Heath got up, too, signaling the end of the discussion. "Go on," Heath said to them all, and they all hurried out of the room.

Nick and Heath looked at each other. "That went better than I thought it might," Nick said.

Heath nodded and took a deep breath. "But what do you want to bet that little Shakespeare of mine is already making up new stories now that he has all this information?"

Nick chuckled. "And my little bruiser will be at somebody's throat before the day is out."

Heath nodded. "Maybe, but Jarrod's son will lay down the law. Some apples don't fall too far from the tree."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When they saw the boys go scampering upstairs, the women knew the discussion with their fathers was over. Nick and Heath came out from the library, looking pretty happy with themselves.

"So, it went that well?" Victoria asked.

"Went pretty darned well," Nick said. "We explained a lot of things to them, and they took it straight."

"How much do you think they really understood?" Maggie asked.

"We didn't get too complicated on them," Heath said. "Explained why Audra's kids and I were all adopted, and explained about the war and about Jarrod but not too deep into anything."

"The big question is whether Little Heath will be cured of making up stories that get J.J. and Tony fighting," Nancy said.

"He does seem to like to get his cousins at each other's throats," Heath conceded. "We'll just have to wait and see how long it takes for the next fight to break out."

It didn't take long. Some rumbling noises came from upstairs, and as Little Nick began to squirm in her arms as if he didn't like what he was hearing, Suzanne said, "Uh-oh."

Looking annoyed, Nick and Heath went running upstairs, leaving the women to try not to laugh. Nick and Heath went straight to J.J.'s room, where they found Tony and J.J. wrestling with Little Heath. Heath made a grab for his son, afraid he might actually get hurt by his older cousins, but nobody looked hurt.

Nick grabbed the other two. "What is it about now? Didn't we just talk to you about fighting?"

"Little Heath was telling lies again," Tony said.

"What did you say this time?" Heath asked.

"Nothing," Little Heath said.

"You said my father drank too much scotch, and that's why he got sick and died," J.J. said and made another dive for Little Heath before Nick could strengthen his grab.

Heath shook his son good. "That's a horrible thing to say! You've got to stop making up these stories, or it's gonna be a mouth full of soap for you, boy!"

Nick saw real anger in J.J.'s eyes. "Your father did not drink too much," Nick said. "He died saving your Uncle Heath's life, and that's the truth. Whatever stories Little Heath makes up, you ignore them."

"And you quit making them up!" Heath bent down and said directly into his son's face. "Every time you make up a story, from right now until forever, you're gonna get your mouth washed out, you got that?"

"Yes, sir," Little Heath mumbled.

"What's that?" Heath said.

"Yes, sir," Little Heath said louder.

"All right," Nick said. "Now, Tony and J.J., you get outside and get to your chores."

"And you come downstairs with me," Heath said to Little Heath.

The boys scrambled away, except for Little Heath who stayed under the firm hold of his father. J.J. and Tony were already out the front door by the time Nick, Heath and Little Heath got down to the living room.

Heath immediately said to his wife, "This boy is making up stories again already, and I told him he was going to get his mouth washed out every time he did from now on."

"Uh-oh," Suzanne said, making as serious a face as she could muster at her older son. "You know your Papa means that and so I will do it even when he's not around, don't you, Heath?"

"Yes, ma'am," Little Heath said.

"Time for us to get out of here," Heath said. "Nick, I'll see you out at the range."

Suzanne got up with the baby, and Nick walked Heath's family to the door. As soon as he came back to the living room he said, "I hope Little Heath can avoid having his mouth washed out at least until he gets home."

Nancy laughed as Nick sat down beside her on the arm of the chair she sat in. "He is a little bugger, isn't he?"

Nick said, "They all have their wild sides. Mother, I don't know how you raised three sons in one house."

"Well, you boys did your share of squabbling, but it helped that Jarrod was four years older than you and you were eleven years older than Eugene," Victoria said. "Otherwise, I don't think I could have done it."

"But they're good boys, overall," Nancy conceded. "Even Tony."

Nick gave her a squeeze and then a kiss. "Yeah, he's been a handful ever since he came into this world, but I'm glad he's here."

Victoria smiled. "They are good boys – and I'm glad they belong to you and not me."

The front door opened. Ciego looked exasperated. "I am sorry I did not knock, Senor Nick, but your boy and his cousin are at it again."

Nick moaned and got up. "And I don't think we can blame Little Heath this time."

Nick went out, the women laughing behind them.

"J.J. and Tony will grow out of this," Victoria said.

"Do we have enough bandages around until then?" Nancy asked.

"I'll whip up a batch of my linament," Victoria said. "I think I still remember how to make it."

"Did it help cure the bumps and bruises?" Maggie asked.

"No," Victoria said, "but it stung so much, it made for more peace among the warriors." She got up. "I'll go write the recipe down. You ladies are going to need it."

The End


End file.
